


Coming Home

by bending_sickle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 17:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2077566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bending_sickle/pseuds/bending_sickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles comes home, and his father waits up. (Episode 2x04)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where's the Fire?

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Sheriff Stilinski sank down onto the couch with a sigh. He could almost feel the years settling on him like a heavy blanket, joints registering their complaint at having been put through overtime yet again. It was late and the house was empty. It often was, these days. 

Stilinski popped a beer can open and balanced it on his knee, waiting for Stiles to come home, wondering what mayhem his son was up to. The kid was running around like a headless chicken more often than not. Sure he’d spout some line about study groups or midnight showings, but no teenage boy runs to those like he’s trying to put out a fire.

And Stiles had been showing up at a lot of fires. Name a crime scene and there he was. Innocent bystander, sure, hardly ever a witness, but still _there._

_One’s an incident, two’s a coincidence…_

Stiles was a good liar, evading questions and rattling off quips fast enough to leave your head spinning, but the sheriff knew a thing or two about lies and a hell of a lot more about his son. 

_…and three’s a pattern._

Stiles sure as hell hadn’t gone off to “work on a history project” with Scott, just as Scott certainly wasn’t “doing math homework” with Stiles. Stilinski gave a slow shake of his head. Rule one of setting up an alibi: get your stories straight.

The sheriff took a swig of beer and thought back to all the outrageous lines his son had come up with over the years to talk himself out of sticky situations. The kid had flair, that was for sure. Sometimes, once Stiles had been steered out of harm’s way and Stilinski could drop the _disciplining dad_ act, he would chuckle over the kid’s lines. Even when his son was clutching at straws he still managed to pull it off.

Except there was lying and then there was lying (and then there was _reclining your body in a horizontal position_ ), and Stiles’ were taking on a more desperate edge. Something was going on - had been going on for a while now - and damn that kid, he was probably caught right in the middle of it.

But Stilinski knew when to push and when to wait. Didn’t mean he liked waiting, watching his son like a hawk, noting every time things were just off-centre from normal. Some things were so off-centre, like that supposed prank the two pulled on Jackson, that Stilinski wondered if Stiles honestly believed his father was buying it. 

Stiles didn’t want him to know what was going on, probably didn’t want him to worry, but sooner or later Stilinski was going to find out. As for the worrying part, well, he always worried.

Like now. He sat there on the couch, forgotten beer dripping condensation into his jeans and some muted television program lighting the room, clenching his teeth so hard he could feel a tension headache coming on. 

He checked his phone then checked it again because he had no idea what he’d looked at the first time. He set the phone beside him on the couch then instantly picked it up again, this time forcing himself to read the time on the screen. He double-checked to make sure it hadn’t accidentally gone on mute before setting it back down, within easy reach. Waiting.

A crick in his neck and the jingle of keys hitting the ground woke him up.


	2. Long Day (Longer Night)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> However long the night, the dawn will break. - Proverb

Stiles can barely keep his eyes open on the way home, even though his heart is pounding in his chest like it thinks he’s still running for his life and his hands are claws on the steering wheel, squeezing so tight his joints ache, and _can we not think about claws please?_

There’s a stillness in the air when he reaches home, that teetering moment when late night turns into early morning, and his breath is coming out in quick white puffs. The promise of a new day is still a whisper, with the world still shrouded in shades of grey. 

Somehow it makes Stiles feel just a little worse that he’s not even coming home at dawn. He couldn’t even make it back during the witching hour, which sounded like a way cool time of night. No, he has to sneak back at some sort of Schrödinger time window that doesn’t know if it’s day or night or anything at all. Like it doesn’t exist, or the world doesn’t exist. 

Although honestly he’d be pretty okay with that right now.

He stumbles out of the jeep - the door creaking high and long like some dying animal and _stop it, Stiles, stop it_ \- and he wonders how much he’ll have to pay for repairs this time before remembering that he’ll have to find a new mechanic first, and then that brings on a wave of memories and -

"Stop it, stop it, stop." He’s on his knees on the sidewalk and he can feel his house, his home, looming over him, and suddenly he sees himself as the empty windows would, as anyone would if there were anyone outside at this non-hour. A beat-up teen sprawled on the ground by a beat-up jeep, small and alone and aching all over. 

He thinks about how Proxima Centauri is the closest star to Earth but even that is over four light years away (which is ten to the sixteenth meters because it’s science so it’s metric) and how that’s _nothing_ compared to that pulsar and its Diamond Planet but-not-really-a-planet (because those two are four _thousand_ light years away, and four thousand years is enough to go from the Bronze Age to the Digital Age) and how very, very far away that is and how lonely it must be.

Eventually, because there’s nothing else he can do, he pulls himself up. The jeep groans under his weight and hides his own whine of pain. He makes it to the door and stands there swaying until he remembers the next step to take. He pulls his keys out from his pocket but his hands are claws again, stiff and curled like they’re still holding onto the steering wheel, and the keys fall down, light years down, and when he stoops to pick them up he almost curls up on the floor again, right on the welcome mat.

It takes three tries to get the key into the lock. His hands start shaking at the second try and he almost drops them again, the skin on the back of his neck prickling, and the night is still hovering over his shoulder, the world still matte and grey and waiting.

He finally manages to sink the key in, a scrape and slide that makes him think of claws again, long sharp nails digging into flesh, and before he can stop himself - he can never stop himself - he’s wondering what kind of holding power nails would need to lift a man clear off his feet.

He slips inside, crossing over that magical threshold of outside and inside. Here he’s home, and safe, but he feels like he’s tainting it all, like he’s dragging the grey in with him, something stuck to his shoes and on his skin, in his hair and under his fingernails. Inside it’s dark and quiet and waiting, and it should be comforting but Stiles finds himself waiting for the floor to drop, for the stairs to hit him in the ribs again, for the dank basement smell to crash over him, and _no, no, no, stop it, no.you?_ " like he was asking to set a bone-saw to his father’s arm.)

He thinks about the colour of his bedsheets, the texture of his blanket, the stains on his bedside table. He narrows his world down to that one small space and puts everything that’s left inside of him towards getting there.

Stiles puts his hands out in front of him in the dark house. He knows every inch of it but still can’t fight the feeling that he’s going tumble down a flight of stairs any moment now. He focuses his eyes on the floor - grey at this hour even though it’s not - and focuses his mind on his room.

He’s past the charcoal grey that is the open living room door when something moves. Grey shifts past greys and Stiles is cringing back, hitting the wall like it’s a basement floor, the shock jarring his back and shoulders and rattling his heart in his chest. His lungs are taking in chlorinated water and the bruises on his cheek wake up with a scream.

Something heavy clasps his shoulder and squeezes and Stiles flinches and twists, and his elbow hits the stair railing and his mouth is open before the pain even finishes cresting up his arm.

"Stiles!" His shoulder is shaken. " _Stiles!_ Jesus, son are you alright?” His other shoulder is squeezed and he’s pulled back up onto his feet, steadied against the wall, and Stiles looks up at the grey.

"Dad?" he says and he hates that it twists into a question.

"Are you alright?" repeats his father, and now he can see it’s his father, and dawn must have decided to show up after all.

"I’m fine, Dad, I’m fine," his mouth says, old habits dying never, and he’ll probably be lying in his coffin still saying that he’s fine. His body screams out the lie at him, aches and bruises and cut skin all clamouring for attention. Stiles clears his throat and focuses. "I’m fine."

"What happened to you? Where were you? Did those kids from the other team-“

"No! No, Dad, I’m fine, it’s wasn’t- I was-" Stiles swallows and waits for the words to come, the easy lies that sleep beneath his tongue, but they’re not stirring. He doesn’t know what to say, so he sticks to the one lie he still has. "I’m fine, Dad, I’m okay." He twists under his father’s grip, raising his arm to press a hand to the figure in front of him. "I’m okay." He doesn’t know if his hand is squeezing or pushing.

His shoulder is released, slowly, like they were Stiles’ hands wrapped around the steering wheel, and fingers slide up to the base of his neck. “ _Dad_ -“

"Okay, okay," whispers his father, and that word is starting to sound like so much nothing, like grey light and puffs of breath and the non-hour between night and day. "Let’s just get you to bed. Come on, kiddo." He walks Stiles up the steps, hand slipping down between his shoulder blades, steady and strong. It’s nothing like the other steps - up, not down; carpet, not concrete - and Stiles starts letting his world wind down to just the hand on his back and the promise of sleep.

They reach his room, Stiles shuffling his feet over the worn carpet, and his eyes close as he lets himself fall on the bed. For one split second as gravity takes him, he stiffens, remembering concrete, but his face lands on a pillow and his body relaxes. His dad’s still in the room, shuffling around carefully in the dark - although it’s not dark anymore, is it? Dawn’s coming and the sky’s blushing instead of grey. 

He vaguely registers his feet being moved, shoes coming off, then he’s being picked up and he’s four again. He stirs a little when he’s put down again, cool sheets stretching out beneath him and a blanket settling over him. A hand touches his cheek like it’s scared he’ll fall apart; the bruise wakes up beneath the feather-like touch and so does Stiles.

There’s something hurt in his father’s expression. “I’m sorry, Dad, I’m-“

"Go to sleep, Stiles."

"No, but, Dad, I’m-"

"We’ll talk later, kiddo." The hand moves up to his hair and strokes it gently, and Stiles can feel the bed swallowing him up. "Just close your eyes now, son, and go to sleep."

Stiles does.


End file.
